


To Live Well

by Quicksilver_ink



Category: Suikoden II
Genre: Cultural Differences, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Verbal Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-18 14:10:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5931277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quicksilver_ink/pseuds/Quicksilver_ink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucia is not impressed with the meek princess of Highland, but there's more to Jillia Blight than first meets the eye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Live Well

**Author's Note:**

  * For [surskitty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/surskitty/gifts).



The first thing Lucia noticed about Jilia was that the men hardly seemed to notice her. The princess would slip unobtrusively into her seat in the officers’ tent shortly before the evening meal began, and disappear like a wisp of smoke after the meal ended. It was several days before Lucia even noticed the princess’s presence at dinner.

During the meal, Jillia sat silently beside her brother, a tiny mouse of a girl beside her towering brother. She ate sparingly -- at least in contrast to her brother’s overflowing plate -- with what Lucia assumed were impeccable Highland manners. She was pale, even for a Highlander -- the men’s faces and hands showed some color, but the princess’s face was bone-white against the black of her hair and dark colors of her heavy dress.

She never spoke. When she finished eating, she stayed seated, eyes cast down and hands clasped in her lap, until they were all dismissed.

The other Highlanders, to a man, ignored her. Culgan and Seed spoke almost exclusively with each other if they weren’t answering to the Mad Prince. Kiba spoke with the strategist, or Jowy, or even Lucia herself, but never even nodded politely at the princess. Solon Jhee was boisterous, especially after wine was served, and often addressed the group at large -- but somehow it never seemed like Jillia was meant to be included.

By the end of the first week, Lucia wasn’t certain which galled her more -- the way the men treated the princess, or the princess’s own meekness. She was a chieftain's -- king’s-- daughter -- why did she not act like one?

 

* * *

 

“--only meant to show respect!” The princess’s voice rose in a plea.

“Faugh! He deserves no respect for loyalty to that fool cowering on the throne!”

Lucia stepped back from the entrance to the royal tent. She hadn’t needed the warnings of Jowy or the old general, Kiba, to know that she should avoid the prince when he was in a temper. Kiba had been fairly elliptical, simply telling her not to think she could “weather the storm when it blows.” Jowy had been more blunt: talking with the prince when he was in the wrong mood was putting your life on the line.

But Jowy had also asked her to bring this letter to Jillia. And he was the one she’d sworn to, her people’s service in his fight in exchange for land of their own. So she remained outside the tent, wishing she could shut the man up -- or at least shut her ears down.

“You will not serve tea to Kiba again! Or anyone but me, and your husband-to-be! Not unless I order you to!” Lucia thought she heard plates rattle with the prince’s bellow. Then there was silence, at least from Luca; if the princess replied, it was too soft for Lucia to hear. But that was no surprise.

There was the sound of shuddering wood -- apparently the prince could not keep his temper in check, and had kicked something inside. There were words, too, that Lucia would gut a man for saying to her, brother or no.

The tent flap tore open, and Lucia bent over in the awkward bow that these Highlanders insisted on whenever you ran into someone of higher rank.  

“The western barbarian princess, eh?” Luca mused. “Jillia! Don’t serve her tea, either. Understand?”

“Yes, brother.” Pondweed had more backbone than the princess, apparently.

“Your highness,” Lucia said, and stayed bowed until the prince had stomped away. His heavy footfalls as he passed her reminded her of the time she’d hid in bushes on the Yaza plains, holding her breath as one the great, ill-tempered boars trotted past.  In some ways, she had been safer there, back on the lands she knew, with dangers she was used to.

“Please, come in,” Jillia said as the silence stretched in her brother’s wake. Lucia looked up to see the girl was hovering just inside the tent, holding the flap aside with one hand, half-hidden by the wall of the structure.

Lucia bowed again, because those were the rules, but followed the princess inside.

Inside, the royal family’s tent was almost like a proper house, the sleeping space separated from the main area by hanging fabric, and an area for sitting nearly in the center. Although the white, shimmering curtains were a far cry from the hangings Karayans used, and the table and chairs were on flat ground instead of a platform, and the same strange height of other Highland furnishings.

“Make yourself comfortable,” the princess said cordially, as if her brother had not just screamed at her for trivialities. She sank into her own seat gracefully, loose locks of hair swinging forward over her shoulder and covering her face.  She kept her eyes lowered modestly.

“Why don’t you just poison him?” Lucia demanded as she scooted her uncomfortably tall chair closer to the table. She’d meant to greet the princess more properly, but it was maddening to see the way the other woman just folded in the face of her brother.  

Jillia kept her eyes cast downwards. “My brother? I couldn’t possibly.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

“Why not? I am given to understand that you easterners are well-versed in that subject,” Lucia said bitterly, thinking of her father’s body convulsing on the red, red rug in the center of their home.

Jillia stayed motionless.

Her silence only fueled Lucia’s frustration. Why wouldn’t the girl say something? “And your husband-to-be seems to be stockpiling the stuff.”

Still Jillia did not push back; if anything, she shrank further. “I couldn’t say. He’s not spoken to me of it.”

 _Do you ask permission to sleep, eat, and use the privy, too?_ Lucia wanted to snap. Instead, she bit the inside of her cheek and counted to ten, letting the pain bleed off her frustration. “On the subject of Lord Jowy… he asked me to give you this.” She waved the envelope at the princess.

Jillia rose and took the envelope carefully in both hands, as if she feared it were fragile, or heavier than it appeared, and Lucia tried not to sigh.

 

* * *

 

For a time after that, Lucia avoided the princess, and the main camp, as much as she could, remaining on the fringes with her own people. It was bad enough to be talked down to herself, so many of these light-skinned men treating her like a child with her first knife instead of a Clan Chief. But it was worse to see another chief's daughter stay so silent, following orders instead of learning to give them. Avoiding disputes, instead of learning how to resolve them. Were the Highlanders really so certain that their prince would survive the war, that they didn’t need to train his sister to lead in his stead if he was killed, or crippled in mind or body?

Granted, that certainty was understandable, because Lucia had never heard of Luca Blight taking injury in any of their battles -- and not because he remained in the back lines, like the strategists. No, he was always in the front lines, often galloping ahead of his bodyguard, roaring like a beast. His stamina seemed almost inhuman.

But even if he was unkillable, that was no reason for his sister to abandon her birthright -- or her responsibilities.

So Lucia found herself watching the girl once more.  She scarcely left her tent, so Lucia had to content herself with watching Jillia at the start and end of mealtimes. The princess moved silently, despite her full skirts made of fabric that rustled at the slightest breeze. There was a grace there -- not suited for the battlefield, no, but a grace nonetheless. It might have made her a credible hunter.

“Can I help you, Chief Lucia?” the princess asked, one evening. Apparently she’d noticed the Karayan’s eyes.

“Do you know how to use a knife?” Lucia asked bluntly. She was being rude, by Karayan and Highland standards alike.

“At the table? Yes, of cou- oh. You mean to fight.”

“Yes.”

The princess shook her head slowly and folded her hands before her, dainty white fingers against her dark, full skirts.  “In Highland, women do not study the arts of war.”

Lucia fought to keep her temper. It wasn’t the girl’s fault Highland was so backwards. “I’ll teach you,” she offered, trying to sound friendly.

Jillia smiled at that. “Thank you, but I know how busy you soon will be. I couldn’t possibly put you to the trouble.”

“You should be able to defend yourself, at the very least,” Lucia urged. “I know you’re surrounded by soldiers now, but if you had to travel in a hurry, sometime…”

It was, inexplicably, the wrong thing to say; the princess shrank back. “I couldn’t possibly,” she whispered.

“Why not? You’re young, and whole in body.”

Jillia shook her head firmly. “My brother would never permit it.”

Surely it was her father’s right to give the girl her first knife, not her brother’s? Or had Luca claimed that privilege somehow? No, Jillia had said women did not fight, so there ought to be no customs for the bestowal of knives. Still…. “It needn’t be a knife -- I could show you how break fingers, break free from holds, or stop a man who tries-.”

“Hush, I beg you!” Jillia whispered frantically. “Not where my brother can hear.” She lifted her skirts, and with the tilt of her head, indicated for Lucia to follow.

Jillia proceeded through the camp, her back straight and her face carrying a pleasant, neutral expression. She did not seem like someone seeking a quiet place for a clandestine conversation.

Baffled and wary, Lucia followed her.

They reached the royal tents. Jillia bade her wait outside, then a moment later reemerged to gesture her in.

The tent was as half-familiar, half-strange as it had been before. This time, a tea set had been placed on the table, apparently in advance of the princess’s return from dinner. Lucia waited for the princess to sit, according to Highlander manners, but Jillia shook her head. “Please, I’ll serve the tea.”

Feeling more at home -- in Karayan custom, the host served the guest -- Lucia slid onto one of the tall, spindly chairs.

“This is Southwind-style tea,” Jillia said quietly, as she rinsed the largest of the cups with a small splash of water. This she poured out through the slats of the dark wooden box. “I do hope it will be to your liking.” She carefully measured the dark leaves  into the cup. It seemed an awfully small quantity, Lucia thought, as the princess quickly rinsed them, using the strange saucer-lid to strain the rinse-water.

Then the princess poured the water again, filling the cup properly this time. The tiny leaves unfurled, like a blooming flower, expanding to nearly fill the porcelain vessel. Fragrant steam rose. The scent was not smoky, like Karayan tea, but not quite floral, either.

Jillia had closed her eyes for a moment, and breathed in slowly. Her lips curved in a small smile -- a real smile, Lucia thought. It lit the princess's face, bone-white turning to moon-glow.

A minute passed, in silence, then another. And then Jillia took up the lid again, straining the tea into the smaller cups set out.

Lucia lifted the cup in pinched fingers and sipped cautiously. “It’s good! Ah, thank you,” she added, awkwardly, not sure what Highland or Southwind custom called for a guest to say in these circumstances.  


“I’m glad.” Jillia sipped her own tea, holding the cup in an elegant and bewildering grip that Lucia decided not to try to mimic.

“My offer still stands.” Lucia sipped her tea again.

The princess sighed. “I appreciate your kindness more than I can say, but please, speak no more of it. My brother would not permit it.”

“Is this too a Highland custom, the brother making his sister’s choices?” Lucia could not keep the bitterness from her tone.

Jillia shook her head. “No. But he’s looked after me.”

“Then why do you let him rule your life?”

“I don’t-”

“Like hells. You say he won’t let you learn to protect yourself. And don’t tell me he knows best -- your safety should matter to him!” Lucia realized how close she was to shouting, and bit her lip.

The princess’s answering silence was long and heavy. Lucia was going to apologize when Jillia said, softly, “He says it’s my fault. Our mother died bearing me.”

“That’s-” Lucia sought a word to express her disgust. “Insane. Stupid. _Barbaric._ You shouldn’t believe that load of-”

“I don’t.”

Lucia, expecting a denial of another sort, was surprised into temporary wordlessness. “Then why do you let him say it?” she said, when she found her speech again.

Jillia smiled, an empty, polite smile. “Because my brother has always been allowed to do what he wants, and no one has ever stopped him.”

“Not even your father?”

The other woman took a deep breath. “My brother claims that my father’s cowardice is why I was born. He finds this fact intolerable.” Jillia lifted her teacup -- empty now -- and cradled it in her hands. “I am permitted to live because I remind him of our mother.”

What did one say to that? “I’m sorry. I… I didn’t know.”

“Of course not,” Jillia agreed, politely. “But you see why I cannot accept your offer.”

“I do.”  Lucia set her cup down. “I’m sorry.”

“Please don’t be. You meant well. But my brother--”

“I’ll kill him for you,” Lucia offered impulsively, although as soon as the words left her lips she knew they were folly.  There was something inhuman about the man. And it was Jillia’s brother, and _her_ right to ask, not Lucia’s to offer.

“You could not,” Jillia said with certainty. “I fear there is no one left who can.”

Lucia waited, but the princess did not finish her sentence.  She sighed. “Someone must. He’s a rabid boar. He’ll tear the land apart in his rage.”

The princess said nothing. Lucia wondered if she’d gone too far. The prince was a monster, but he was still Jillia’s kin. “Thank you for the tea,” she said, awkwardly. “It was very good.”

The princess smiled again, although if it was real or mere courtesy Lucia could no longer tell. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

Once the proper goodbyes were said, Lucia did her very best not to sprint to the comfort of the Karayan encampment, away from her shameful ignorance and the weight of the princess’s revelation. She should have seen it -- of course the mad prince would make his sister bend to his whim and will, even more than his soldiers and generals. The surprise was not that Jillia bent like a willow before the wind of his temper, but that she had survived so long. How could the spirit survive a cage for so long, with not even the slightest avenue of freedom? Was a slave the only thing the princess could be?

Then Lucia remembered. “Don’t serve her tea, either,” she repeated to herself, and smiled grimly.

 

* * *

 

 

When King Agares died, Jillia had already relocated to the capital, so Lucia could not offer her condolences in person. Whether Agares had been a weak ruler or not, or Jillia’s father by blood, Lucia was not certain, but by all accounts the princess had loved him and he, her. And Lucia knew what it was like to see your father die before your eyes. 

She sent a letter instead. She dictated it to a scribe and kept it short, and formal -- the Mad Prince was now the Mad King, and she did not want to draw his eye, or ire. 

When Luca, in turn, died to Jowy’s well-planned treachery, a proper letter would have been safe, but Lucia did not know  _ what _ to say. 

Then word came that the princess was planning to wed Jowy and name him king of Highland, and Lucia knew  _ exactly  _ what she wanted to say to that.

_ “You don’t have to do it,” _  Lucia shouted, pushing past guards to burst open the door to the royal chamber. It came out between gasps for air. She’d arrived at the capital not half an hour before and raced through the city and castle for the royal quarters. If the princess was in the middle of dressing, minor embarrassment was a small price to pay; Lucia’s news was more important. It wasn’t as if the girl was a shaman or craftsman, with delicate work that might be ruined by sudden interruption.

The princess was dressed, and seated at a table. A fragile-looking porcelain cup was raised in her pale, delicate hands. 

Far rougher hands grabbed Lucia -- two of the guards. “Your Highness!” one of them said, while Lucia fought their joint grip. “Please forgive us. This impudent savage was told to go away, but she--”

“I know this woman. She’s sworn to my betrothed’s service,” Jillia said with her usual serenity, impossibly calm in the face of the commotion. “No doubt she brings important news from him. Please, unhand her.”

The guards were reluctant, but Jillia was firm, and Lucia was soon released and alone in the room with the heir to Highland’s throne.

“You don’t have to marry him,” Lucia told her fiercely. It was most likely a betrayal of her allegiance to Jowy, but someone needed to say it, and these Highlanders thought too little of their women, and their princess. “You can take the throne yourself.”

Throughout the earlier tumult, Jillia had held on to her tea cup. Now she set it down with slow precision on the saucer. There wasn’t even a clink when the porcelain met. “The ceremony is already planned for tomorrow.”

“So order them to stop! You have that authority.”

Jillia turned her cup, lining up the patterns painted on the thin china. “I was pledged to him when he took Greenhill for my brother.”

“So? That was your brother’s agreement with him. You don’t have to honor it!”

“A noble does not renege on her oaths,” Jillia said simply. “I thought you understood. Since you didn’t ask me why I stayed in Highland, despite everything.”

“You’d make a king out of the man who murdered your father?” Lucia’s voice shook as she fought to keep her temper under control. “The man your pig of a brother sold you to in exchange for Greenhill?”

Jillia did not move, still sitting calm and demure. Finally, she said, “Why do  _ you _ follow my lord? Knowing he betrayed both my father and brother.”

Lucia stepped back, blinking. The woman’s tone was mild, for all that the question wasn’t. “He’s promised me land. For my people. So we can be free. So that our children will not know war.”

Jillia smiled. “ _ That  _ is the man I would make king.” Then the smile fell away, and she said, gravely, “His hands are bloody. I know this.  _ He  _ knows this. But he wishes to build, not just destroy.”

“You could take the throne yourself,” Lucia repeated. “It’s yours by right. Or at least, it would be in Karaya.”

“Oh, I couldn’t,” Jillia said automatically, and Lucia  _ saw _ the other woman shove the thought away, as if the idea itself was unsafe. The unspoken words,  _ My brother would never allow it  _ hovered between them.

Lucia said, as gently as she knew how, “Your brother is dead, Princess.”

Jillia stared at her, and for once her face was no mask. 

“He’s really gone,” Lucia told her, speaking slowly, like you did to a soldier in shock. “We saw his body. My shamans swear his soul has fled.”

“My brother is dead,” Jillia repeated, carefully, like the words themselves were as fragile as the teacups on the table.  “My brother is dead. And I… I am the heir. Oh.”  

“You can serve tea to whoever you want,” Lucia added. 

Jillia breathed in, breathed out. “You’re right. I can.” 

“Yes! You can keep Jowy on as a general, or an advisor…” Was that the right word for it? Lucia herself had men and women -- elders and shamans -- who sat council with her and shared their wisdom.  

“Highland has never had a reigning queen.” It was half-plea, half-revelation.

“Karaya’s never fought for another country. There’s a first time for everything, Your Highness. Majesty,” Lucia amended.

Jillia shook her head. “No, that’s not what I mean. It’s…” she hesitated.  

Lucia bit the inside of her cheek to keep from interrupting. The last thing the other woman needed was someone new speaking over her, dictating her choices.

When Jillia spoke again, it was slow, as if she chose each word with care before it passed her lips. “Highland should have a queen who rules it, someday. But that queen cannot be me. I am… too accustomed to being ruled, myself. And others are too accustomed to ignoring me.”

“And Lord Jowy would rule anyway,” Lucia realized. The Karayans had never had that problem, but stories were told of the time that the hereditary head of Alma Kinan had let her lover -- a foolish but strong-willed man -- nearly lead the clan to destruction. It was said this was why Alma Kinan permitted no men to reside within their walls for longer than the turning of the moon. Lucia wasn’t sure whether it was true.

“Yes. I do not wish to be a puppet,” Jillia said, her words still precise and too-even. “And I believe in my lord, and his dream. But when the war ends, I shall learn to exert my power. Slowly, and carefully, to show I can be trusted with it.  And pave the way for a true Queen, someday.”

Lucia sat down heavily in an extra chair, only just now feeling the fatigue of her long run through the city. This was going to be the best they could hope for, she knew. But it stung to see the woman robbed of her birthright yet again, curtailed by her brother’s legacy and Highland’s blindness.

“In the meanwhile, perhaps…” Jillia added.

“Perhaps…?”

Jillia smiled shyly. “Perhaps, you could teach me to use a knife?”  
 

**Author's Note:**

> I've taken some slight liberties with canon -- Lucia and the Karayans don't show up until later in the game, until after Luca dies. But I hope, perhaps, that I may be forgiven for supposing they joined the alliance earlier than that, for the purposes of this story's development.
> 
> 2nd, SOMEWHAT BELATED AUTHOR'S NOTE: In the original game, Jillia offers tea to Riou and Jowy when they are spying on the Highland camp and have to hide in her tent to avoid capture by Rowd. Most Americans (and, in this fic, Lucia) read this sort of thing as "Jillia is being a proper hostess, how traditionally feminine", but it's actually a very significant gesture to the original audience -- to be served tea by a royal is a great honor. We can see the way things are supposed to go in Suikogaiden, when Nash is masquerading as a soldier and winds up in the tent with both Luca and Jillia. There, Luca orders Nash (the lowest-ranked person present) to serve the tea. 
> 
> A better writer than I would've been able to Show this through the story, rather than Tell in an author's note. But I thought it was a sufficiently interesting detail, and this fandom sufficiently old and tiny, that I thought it was worth sharing here, even as it underscores my own deficiencies as a writer.


End file.
